2 walk away from small plane crash near Dunnigan

Two people are reported safe after their plane made an emergency landing this evening in a field near Dunnigan Wednesday night.

Lt. Martin Torres of the Yolo County Sheriff's Department told the Sacramento Bee a call was received at 7:28 p.m.. from Travis Air Force Base reporting that a small plane had made an emergency call near Dunnigan.

Travis reported that the plane had disappeared from radar and provided coordinates for the location where it was believed to have gone down. The coordinates put the site near West Sacramento and a search was launched, but when a California Highway Patrol air crew joined in the search, they recognized the coordinates as aviation coordinates, not GPS coordinates, which are different, Torres told the Bee.

The new coordinates put the plane about 12 miles northwest of Watts Woodland Airport, which is four miles north of Woodland.

Assistant Dunnigan Fire Chief Michael Urlaub picks up the story from there saying they were called out to a field near County Road 7 and CR-99W around 8:42 p.m. and moved in to offer help once law enforcement personnel cleared the scene for fire department response. Firefighters found the small fixed-wing plan had crashed in a field and that two occupants of the aircraft were uninjured and were walking around. None of the occupants of the aircraft were transported to any hospitals, although one person suffered a black eye.

"It was a very surprising outcome," Yolo County Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Mez told a Sacramento TV station. "It's pretty surprising you've got a plane crash and they're able to walk away on their own two feet."

Mez said the two occupants had taken off from Watts Woodland Airport. The pilot reported that the plane was having trouble and that a loss of power caused it to go down. The FAA is investigating.